BLOOD RELATIONS | Flat Earth Theatre presents Sharon Pollock's 1980 drama about Lizzie Borden and her ax. Lizzie's parents, Andrew and Abigail, were murdered in their Fall River home back in 1892, and though Lizzie went on trial for the crime, she was acquitted. So, did she do it? | Arsenal Center for the Arts Black Box Theatre, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown | 800.838.3006 | August 6-15 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Sat | 2 pm Sun | $15; $10 students, seniors; "pay what you can" August 6 preview

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES | Reagle Players wrap up their 2009 summer season with this musical from Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman that's set in Saint-Tropez, where Georges and Albin live happily and Albin performs as Zaza in the title local drag club. But then Georges's son (from back before Georges's real gender preference kicked in), Jean-Michel, arrives with the news that he's engaged to Anne, whose father heads the Tradition, Family, and Morality Party, and of course her parents want to meet Jean-Michel's parents. The cast includes original (1983) Broadway cast members Jamie Ross and David Engel; original Broadway cast member David Scala choreographs and directs. | Robinson Theatre, 617 Lexington St, Waltham | 781.891.5600 | August 13-22 | Curtain 2 pm [August 13] or 7:30 pm [August 16] Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 2 pm [August 15] + 7:30 pm Sat | 2 pm Sun | $32-$54

THE DREAMER EXAMINES HIS PILLOW | Shakespeare & Company does this early (1986) John Patrick Shanley play about a dreamer who wants to be a painter, his former girlfriend, his former girlfriend's father (who actually is a painter), and a refrigerator you're advised to keep an eye on. With Bowman Wright as Tommy, Miriam Hyman as Donna, and John Douglas Thompson as Donna's dad; no word on who plays the refrigerator. Long-time S&C favorite Tod Randolph makes her directing debut. | Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, 70 Kemble St, Lenox | 413.637.3353 | August 7–September 6 | Curtain times vary | $16-$38; $11-$29 students, seniors

"FEVER FEST 09: FRICTION" | The newly formed Small Theatre Alliance of Boston has taken over Whistler in the Dark's annual summer festival, which is now in its fourth year. On the bill: imaginary beasts in Angelo Beolco's Weasel, Veronica Barron and Company in would you meet me?, This and That Theater Group in The Old Woman, New Exhibition Room in Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, Bright Lights & Burning Nights Old Time Circus and Traveling Road Show in an excerpt from The Disappearing Man & Other Sad Songs, Phoenix Theatre Artists in Iron over the Curb, or Bollywood Ending, and Whistler in the Dark in Timothy Callahan's Friction of Dust. | Factory Theatre, 791 Tremont St, Boston |www.TheFactoryTheatre.org| August 6-16 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Fri | 4 + 8 pm Sat | 4 pm Sun | $20; $15 students, seniors

Brilliant and infuriating Shakespeare didn’t slow dance when he wrote Romeo and Juliet — he went for the essence of impetuous young love like a brisk waltz.

Reversal of fortunes Timon of Athens is Shakespeare’s least characteristic tragedy, and the toughest to pull off.

Out on a limb Actors’ Shakespeare Project handles Shakespeare’s biggest bloodbath without turning on a single spigot.

Quake and Shake A tenderhearted yarn spinner tells an anxious little girl a story about a talking bear hawking honey. A nerdy young debt collector comes home to find a six-foot amphibian bent on recruiting him to save Tokyo from a natural disaster. Both scenarios emanate from the brain of award-winning Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.

Songbird and Snowbirds For Shakespeare’s Orsino, music is the food of love. For soprano Florence Foster Jenkins, it was the food of delusion — and she had a voracious appetite.

Sea foam In Rough Crossing , British playwright Tom Stoppard demonstrates that even in the manufacture of abject silliness he’s smarter than anyone else.

More Bard, please The sultry season is soon upon us, and as always, it will bring area theater-goers such dependable balms as Shakespeare (both in and out of the park), classic musicals, and giddy misbehavior of various sorts. Between that manna and a few original productions, written and performed by local artists, we've got a rich season line-up.

LIGHT WAVES: BOSTON BALLET'S ''ALL KYLIÁN'' | March 13, 2013 A dead tree hanging upside down overhead, with a spotlight slowly circling it. A piano on stilts on one side of the stage, an ice sculpture's worth of bubble wrap on the other.

HANDEL AND HAYDN'S PURCELL | February 04, 2013 Set, rather confusingly, in Mexico and Peru, the 1695 semi-opera The Indian Queen is as contorted in its plot as any real opera.

REVIEW: MAHLER ON THE COUCH | November 27, 2012 Mahler on the Couch , from the father-and-son directing team of Percy and Felix Adlon, offers some creative speculation, with flashbacks detailing the crisis points of the marriage and snatches from the anguished first movement of Mahler's unfinished Tenth Symphony.